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Far Eastern Fox Lore1
Far Eastern Fox Lore1
By
T.W . J o h n s o n
its shape into that of a man or women, it covers its body all over
with leaves to make itself a top-knot or queue. This being done,
it turns three double somersaults without touching the ground.
When it returns to its former position it will be in the shape
desired” (Griffis:1874; 58).
are killed and the man explores their houses only to find much
gold and treasure.
De Groot (1892,v o l.5,pp. 597-8) gives what to a Chinese
must be one of the most frightening tales possible on an evil fox:
with the family. The major pleasure which the fox seemed to
have was entertaining guests. It bought and prepared food for
the family’s guests with money which had been locked in the
cash box. If there was insufficient money in the cash box, he
pawned the family’s clothing and left the pawn ticket on the
table. The pawnkeeper always said that a short old man had
pawned the things.
Buchanan (1935: 4 1 ) gives a brief version of one tale
which appeared in several of the collections with only minor
variations:
“Late one evening, a man was walking along the narrow and
steep road known as ‘Kurumazaka’ ('Cart H ill, )which led down
from the Inari Shrine when a huge automobile, blazing with
lights, rushed up and came within a hair’s breadth of hitting the
50 T.W. JOHNSON
“My tutor said not to believe any stories about good foxes.
All foxes were bad and being invisible they could read anything
written about them and took malicious revenge. In self-protection
writers invent stories about good foxes. They are all lies. Be
cause my tutor was a consistent student of the classics he could
not be attacked.”
is stolen. The innkeeper gives him some money and Wang de
cides to invest in fighting quails to recoup. Buys quails to
resell, but it rains and he refuses to go out in it. When the
rain stops, only one quail is still alive. Trains the quail himself
and begins winning. Finally sells quail and goes home with
600 ounces of silver. Fox urges him to buy land and then stays
three years to make sure he is properly industrious. He pro
spers and finally the fox-woman disappears.
One persistent Japanese legend, which Casal (1959) found
in a Tokyo newspaper as an actual incident taking place in
Tochigi-ken (no date or name for newspaper in Casal’s article,
but clearly after 1910),was given in 1894 By Hearn (pp.
332-3):
“All those who dig up the earth and take out the corpses
of men without burying them again, and who smoke foxes or
badgers out of graves, or burn the coffins, (shall be punished
with) one hundred blows with the stick. Those who burn corpses,
with transportation for one year; but, if they belong to the fifth
or higher ranks, their punishment shall be two degrees heavier,
and if they are people of low standing, or children, it shall be
diminished by two degrees. If children or grand-children smoke
foxes or badgers out of the grave of a grand-father, father or
mother, and if the inmates of a house do the same at the grave
of the master of the house, (their punishment shall be) trans
portation for one year; if they burn the coffin, the same for two
years, and if they burn the corpse, then for three years.”
and mouth, rubbed her body with red-hot fire tongs, and bored
holes into her breasts and abdomen. The woman died after
three days of this treatment. A similar case is reported in the
Osaka Mainichi of 1926 as taking place in Chiba-ken. Two
women were killed by their kinsmen because of fox possession.
Yasu Fujita had been insane for some time and her daughter
and brother became convinced it was through fox possession.
They went through “the usual process of filling the poor
woman's eyes and nostrils with sulphur to drive the animal
out.” Throughout the process they continually repeated the
opening of the Lotus Sutra, “Namu myoho renge kyd•” They
then went through the same process for the woman’s mother,
who was also possessed. They waited for the restoration of
their senses, unaware that the patients were already dead.
Finally they reported the whole thing to the police. (Casal:
1959)
“Until the early 1800, s this area was a barren marsh, but
around that time a person named Suzuki Yagoemon began to open
up the land, setting up this little shrine to protect his possessions.
Many years later, in 1885,an old fox that had long lived in a
godown belonging to the Suzuki family acquired the reputation
of having cured an ailing man, and thereupon people began to
flock to the shrine. According to the Hochi Newspaper for
January 7,1897, it boasted by this time 2700 torii.” (Yanagida:
1957: 314)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
On Foxes in East Asia
Anesaki Masaharu
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FAR EASTERN FOX LORE 67